Thread by @JWMason1

This FT article on the divergent fortunes of US-based and European airlines is interesting for several reasons. ft.com/content/695513…

First, it's a reminder that the pandemic (and to a lesser extent the response to the financial crisis) has seen a real reversal of the historic pattern where Western Europe has sen more active, interventionist public sectors and industrial policy.

Support for the airline industry is a nice positive example of policy that limits price increases not by reducing demand, but by maintaining supply.

Yes, it's a problem that the FT doesn't mention the role of unions in winning the PSP. But it's also a problem that progressives in the US don't talk about it. We seem more comfortable criticizing this stuff as bailouts than taking credit for its success.

https://twitter.com/3vanSutton/status/1418629619943575554?s=20

If you've picked up The American Prospect or New Republic over the past year, you've almost certainly seen ferocious denunciations of airline support as corporate welfare. Not so many pieces pointing to it as an example of why active management of the economy beats laissez faire.

Yes, in my ideal world airlines would have been nationalized as a public utility -- and then gradually downsized in favor of less carbon-intensive forms of travel. But in absence of that, are we sure that catastrophic bankruptcies and mass layoffs were the next best option?

Also interesting as a reminder that despite talk of a United States of Europe (and the real power of European institutions in many contexts) Europe still fundamentally consists of national states. Pandemic responses were national, with obvious implications for air travel.

Returning to "bailouts" question - I think it's an urgent challenge right now to find ways of talking about economic policies in response to pandemic as success stories that can be basis for permanent changes in what we expect from the state.

One of the big lessons I've taken from political work is that it's not hard to convince people that the way things are is bad. The hard part is convincing them that politics offers any realistic prospect of making them better.

This recent Jacobin piece by Hadas Thier gets it right, imo. But it feels like she's swimming against the tide.

jacobinmag.com/2021/03/biden-……